Day: March 10, 2014

taped 2014-02-04 @ Arena Coliseo GuadalajaraStigma, Stuka Jr., Tritón vs Boby Zavala, Camorra, Sangre Azteca: Camorra inexplicable has been pushed harder after his mask loss, and so it’s a chance to prove to everyone he should’ve gotten a chance previously. He’s not taken advantage of that opportunity. He was bad here, bad in the first fall, bad in screwing up the comeback spot in the second fall, and only not bad in the third fall because they didn’t give him much to do. There was a normal tercera around his inabilities. This match also featured one of convoluted applications of the Tag Rules in quite some time, as Triton was not allowed to just roll out for tag (?) so Sangre Azteca just whipped him into a slide out instead. Triton, who seems to be on all these Guadalajara bonus matches but doesn’t win many of them, did look nice in his ocean colored outfit. That’s all I got of this match. This really didn’t near to air – the main event from Coliseo had it’s own screwed up spots, but at least that one was heading somewhere.

Camorra forgets he’s in a lucha libre matchsurprise spear is still cool

taped 2014-02-09 @ Arena ColiseoDelta & Guerrero Maya Jr. vs Puma & Tiger for the Arena Coliseo (DF) Tag Team Championship: This was a good match but disappointing live and still disappointing on TV. Delta got harsh reviews during the live broadcast, but didn’t look as bad this time thru – because they did a lot of editing, especially in the third fall. (What is reality?) The one take home from this is Puma seemed to be hurt even before we noticed on the broadcast; he was shaking his arm like something was wrong on the failed clothesline over the top on Maya before his dive. Maybe he strained it trying to get Maya over, or maybe it was even something bugging him coming thru. They did get in a lot of the tag spots they were doing in the lead up trios, but I would’ve expected more than the lead up trios in the title match itself, and Puma limited himself to kicks and chops in between. Finish came off as bland – Delta did a move, got a two count, did another move, won. It doesn’t need to be back and forth but it does need to be fought for more to feel dramatic. CMLL’s done a lot of rematches for this title and I hope these two teams get another shot at it soon.

Air Date: 04/26 (Wednesday taping means it won’t air until the following Sunday.) That leaves that two week period unaccounted for, and another taping around 04/25.

Both shows in one day! SLP local promoter is not good at keeping his lineup quiet, might as well announce it very early.

I’m dumb for not realizing “Black Barrio” = “Black Warrior”, and for missing his name the first time. This is his first regular announced TV appearance here and seems set up against Fenix. If the idea is for Warrior to face Sin Cara again, he really should beat Fenix – maybe even for his title – sometime in this period to continue to build him up. That’d also be a depressing turn of events to people who’ve followed Fenix the last few years (not to mention the man himself!); it’s something that makes logical business sense but I don’t want to actually see happen. Conflicted and all.

Sin Cara doesn’t appear on any of these cards; I guess they’re going to wait out both the non-compete and whatever Sin Cara thinks is happening with the name. They’re going to have to hope the buzz is still there three months later. It should be. Going with my guess of a 04/04 DF taping to be announced, maybe the taping following this one (04/25-27) is also out in the provinces, and AAA comes back for to DF in early May – timing it whenever the non-compete is up to do the big debut.

The opener (and a Pentagon Jr. intrusion) could set up the mixed tag title match, if it hasn’t happened already. Second will have the Rockers being amusing. Tercera, with that group of guys, could end up being the best match AAA does all year. There’s eight more months, I hope there’s even better stuff down the pike, but that’s a collection of six guys who’ve had really exciting matches with nothing to detract from the match. They even have a reason to have the match, with the Pentagon Jr./Australian Suicide stuff, which could lend some actual weight to the outcome.

Alan Stone returns! He disappeared of AAA spot show lineups in October, returned February and makes a TV return here. Meanwhile, Toscano seems to be working every indy show he can and not much with AAA. If Texano’s the reason a CMLL luchador might want to jump to AAA, Toscano is currently the other side of the argument. Twenty years from now, when we’re all watching old episodes of the TV on the AAA Network (while sitting in our flying cars), that stretch where AAA spent good portions of their TV time to build up Los Mirreyes only to give up on them almost immediately is going to be so weird. They appeared to be over with the people they were supposed to be over with. They were not having great matches but that wasn’t the design. Konnan’s strong dislike (to put it politely) of that gimmick is well known, but it seems like there has to be something else beyond that for it to get tossed in the waste basket so quickly. At least Alan gets new chance here.

As much as I’m tired of certain semifinal feuds, the Cibernetico/Perro one has gone on longer and has no prospect of ever concluding. I’m willing to believe AAA actually thought their AAA US stuff was happening early this year and they’ve got nothing planned until that happens, because everything just keeps those feuds running in place. There’s a lot of staleness here, and no obvious sign of big TripleMania matches. They’re also a long way away from TripleMania, and everything that matters happens at about 8 tapings of the year – this doesn’t appear to be one of those 8.

Air Date: 04/05 – and just that? I had this penciled in as a two taping show, and they could always find a way to stretch it out if they needed to, but they could’ve also just ran a sixth match on it if they planned it two be a two taping show. There’s no Gimnasio Juan de la Barrera show announced, but one on 04/04 would make a lot of sense. It could be sooner.

Back to the nothing happening part of our schedule. Main event has three of the Rey de Reyes finalsts; Black Warrior is unseen on either of the two cards announced today. I wouldn’t bet on him. Black Warrior isn’t seen again until the SLP taping. Blue Demon being in the main event here evaporates the small chances of Chessman pulling the upset this weekend; if Demon’s sticking around, there’s no reason for him to lose the title.

The Consejo/Psycho Clown feud, like all mythological beasts of terror, does not die easy. I’m not sure if we need garlic or a cross or a silver bullet, but I’m pretty sure it’s going to outlive me. I’d guess the plan for Verano de Escandalo is Psycho Clown versus Texano Jr., but they’ll only if find room for a world heavyweight title match.

Second match probably has the usual feuds, third match has no feud. Both might be good.

Minis match, likely off TV, is going to be a struggle. It’s definitely not their strongest crew.

Attendance guess comes from the Terra recap; that’s not a sell out (though it’s not like they were going to make money on this show with a sell out.) Every match was changed from the promoted lineup. Doesn’t like Sabu missing the show was ever announced. Fourth match seems to indicate there’s plans for another show, but no date was announced.

Terra’s recap lists Skayde as his El Seminastria character. Maybe that’s how gets around not having to unmask? Is that how he’s actually doing it in IWRG? (Or was that really just about hassling Silver King/AAA?)

They drew better than I would’ve considering given the WWL show. (And Relampago made both!) The Super Nova/Apolo feud played up last week wasn’t as much here – or maybe it’s a trios feud now? Dunno.

Rey de Reyes is six days away and there hasn’t been any official mention on the show being on iPPV. AAA never promised they’d have a deal done for iPPVs for this show, just that were trying to get a deal done in time, and the deal doesn’t look to have gotten done. I’m skeptical they’ll do much the first time out for a non-TripleMania after the last disaster, but they’re running out of time to promote at all – if there’s not a surprise announcement in the next 24 hours or so, I’d probably not happening. Rey de Reyes should start airing on TV next Saturday; I’d like to see it live, but it’s just a six day extra wait (and maybe some editing.)

Like this:

taped 2014-02-09 @ Centro Civico Nueva Aragon, Ecatepec, Estado de MéxicoAerostar, Faby Apache, Jennifer Blake vs El Apache, Sexy Star, Taya Valkyrie: a good mixed quick trios match. The dives were the roughest parts; Taya’s moonsault usually goes better than it did here, and I’m not totally sure even what move Ludxor was going for in the post match triple dive. Taya and Sexy had a bunch of double team moves to get in and Aerostar and Gran Apache work well together.

watch the man in red

your weekly “Lider does something strange/painful” GIF

Crazy Boy & Joe Lider vs Juventud Guerrera & Steve Pain: Another Mexican Powers weapons filled slow unathletic brawl that got the crowd chanting for lucha extrema but didn’t do much for me. This would seem to be a feud ending outcome but storylines aren’t going to advance in Ecatepec. Camera work was not so great, missing the hamburger power up spot and getting an unimpressive shot of Pain going thru the fire table – they showed it from an angle that hide the fire, and never went to a replay (so maybe the fire went out quick and they were actually doing a good job of hiding it? Hmm.) I was much more interested in Niño and Crazy Boy’s attempts to hide the lighter fluid bottle than the end game. Don’t know about pouring thumbtacks in the ring, setting a table on fire, and then bringing in kids in the ring to dance.

Parka dance party

Fénix, La Parka, Monsther Clown, Psycho Clown vs Jeff Jarrett, Parka Negra, Texano, Zorro: The most about of rudo bumbling you’ll see in a match. I kept waiting for the comedy to stop and the rudos to take over the match, and it never really happened. The rudos just kept on hitting each other and dong comedy and then suddenly there was chair shot and it was almost over. It was an odd match to for how serious they apparently want us to take this issue. Crowd not reacting at all for Jarrett’s music was amusing, and so they did everything they could to get him a reaction after the fact. Unsure why Hijo del Tirantes was doing normal counts when Texano was pinning Psycho, despite doing a slow count when Psycho was pinning Texano for the finish. Crowd was way behind Psycho. I guess they’re going to do the drink spot on every show ever. There were about 30 things going on at the end, so I don’t think it even registered. Psycho beating Texano after the guitar shot was also probably supposed to be a big deal, but they completely neutralized it after the fact. Konnan’s the only guy who gets to talk.